LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.._5_* Copyright No. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



IN THE POE CIRCLE 




FROM AN ETCHING BY S. HOLLYER 



In The Poe Circle 



With Some Account of the Poe- 

Chivers Controversy, and other 

Poe Memorabilia 



JOEL BENTON 

Author of " Emerson as a Poet 




M. F. Mansfield & A. Wessels 

NEW YORK 




Copyright 1899 

Bv M. F. MANSFIELD & A. WESSELS 

NEW YORK 






43063 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 



\?^V1, ,J|» 



'«*&. 



SECOND COFA 






Contents. 



The Precursor of Poe, . 

The Poe-Chivers Controversy, 

Poe's Opinion of the Raven, 

Thomas Holley Chivers, 

Baudelaire and Poe : A Brief Parallel, 

Bibliography 



PAGS 

. 7 
• 3i 
. 54 
. 61 
69 
81 



Dedication 



To My Father 

Whose Patient Fortitude 
under Extreme and Life- 
long Trials, and whose 
Generous Nature I have 
Never Known Surpassed. 



Prefatory Note 

The interest which the serial 
publication of the articles here 
collected has evoked, through a 
wide-spread constituency, has 
prompted me to gather them to- 
gether in this way. It only 
remains to be said that they ap- 
peared, two of them, in Collier's 
Weekly ; two in The Forum ; one 
in Munsey's ; and one in Truth. 

It is hoped the illustrative and 
subsidiary features presented, not 
less than the temper of the dis- 
cussion, may have something to 
offer to those who care for Poe. 



JOEL BENTON 



Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
August i, 1899 



Ui^ri-Vrii ' 



<2S*^s 



This is a reproduction 
of the only shingle 
remaining from the 
original roof which 
covered the cottage 
at Fordham while 
Poe lived there. 

J.B. 






ON A SHINGLE. 

Taken from the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage at Fordham 



Beneath this bit of darkened pine, 

Genius and grief once dwelt together ; 
Bard of "The Raven's" haunting line, 

Shingle and bard in bitterest weather. 

But then the cold world had not heard 

Of that immitigable sorrow? 
And human hearts it only stirred 

When dawned the too late, far to-morrow. 

If it should speak, it's parent tree's 

Sad chords — when -winds its boughs were swaying — 
Would fail to voice the tragedies 

All words are powerless for portraying. 

Joel Benton. 



The Precursor of Poe. 

There is no literary reputation in Amer- 
ica, and few literary names of the last half- 
century, that evoke the curious, haunting 
memory which belongs to Poe. A new and 
well-authenticated poem bearing his name, 
which Mr. R. H. Stoddard says he believes 
it will never be possible at this date to find, 
would make a tremendous literary event. 
The discovery of a new Shakespearian play 
might be more interesting to more people ; 
but in America, and in France, where Poe's 
influence has distinctly touched two groups 
of authors belonging to two generations, 
a genuine Poe discovery would, with large 
numbers, take precedence. 

One may state the fact without being able 
[7] 



In the Poe Circle 



to give it critical justification. In fact, the 
critic of Poe as a poet cannot reasonably ac- 
count for him and his fame. A great deal 
of the verse that he wrote, if it was pre- 
sented to-day for the first time, would at- 
tract little attention. If you subtract from his 
body of poetry — which is not a large quan- 
tity taken altogether — "The Raven," "An- 
nabel Lee," and possibly one or two more 
of the poems, in which list "The Bells," for 
its bizarreness, might be included, what, 
really, would there be left to found this 
singular and unchallenged fame upon ? 

But no such treatment would be detri- 
mental to Bryant, Longfellow, Emerson, or 
Lowell ; and Holmes and Whittier could 
bear it equally well without essential loss of 
distinction. What was it, then, that Poe 
contributed to literature which so tingles 
the nerves and stirs up pulsations of de- 
light? It is certainly nothing that he offers 
in the domain of thought. He settles no 
real problems, nor discusses them even, nor 
[8] 



The Precursor of Poe 



peers into them. In one or two passages in 
Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of 
Immortality," and on almost any page of 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam," can be found 
more criticism of life, which is what Mat- 
thew Arnold calls the function of poetry, 
than there is in all the poems Poe ever 
wrote. No great poet that we know drifted 
so far away from Arnold's ideal as Poe did; 
while some of our minor poets fulfil it to a 
very high degree. 

Certainly somewhere and somehow he 
had and gave charm ; and Arnold said also : 

" Charm is the glory which makes 
Song of the poet divine." 

This charm, too, may have been height- 
ened, or made piquant, by his romantic and 
desolate career. Such a career, marking 
nearly a whole life, and ending it with a 
sharp climax so inverted from what we 
could wish it to have been, no doubt gives 
added interest to his work. It gives it, be- 
cause it seems so hard that a man of so 
[9] 



In the Poe Circle 



ethereal genius should not have been a 
crowned prince instead of being driven to a 
lifelong struggle which he was ill fitted to 
maintain. You cannot harness humming- 
birds as common carriers, nor spirits like 
Poe's to prosaic daily concerns. Yet the 
world has no allowance to make for this law 
of adaptation. It cares little at the time 
the poet is living what becomes of that 
most precious commodity which is called 
genius, nor did it ever care. But it will 
rave over and dote upon it a generation 
after the time help and honors have ceased 
to be of any earthly avail. Was it not long 
ago said — 

" Seven cities claimed the birth of Homer, dead, 
Through which the living Homer begged his 
bread"? 

Yet if Poe felt impediments acutely, a 
romantic career, with poverty and various 
ills combined, will not create a genius, as it 
sometimes will not suppress one. Poe, it 
must be conceded, had a hard, tragical fate, 

[IO] 



The Precursor of Poe 



and for his waywardness we need not stop 
to partition the blame. Differ here as we 
may, it is not denied that he brought to tts, 
independently of his condition, a bouquet of 
thrilling verse that seems to hold peren- 
nially its place, its beauty, and its wonder, 
and to glow ever afresh " in the corridors of 
Time." There was at any rate some subtle 
substance, or color, or melody in it, that the 
world does not willingly let die. From his 
best pages exhales an aroma that his imita- 
tors do not quite repeat, and cannot pro- 
duce. There was a mould of form and a 
music which were, as the world thinks, his 
own, but which have been echoed more or 
less, and have influenced other poets — nota- 
bly Baudelaire and Swinburne. Nor would 
the modern decadents have been just what 
they are if Poe had not lived, and written 
as he did. 

But, in writing thus far, and saying these 
few things, I am not aiming to enlarge the 
quantity of Poe criticism which we now 
["J 



In the Poe Circle 



have, or to even emphasize the mental pic- 
ture of Poe which is already very definite in 
the public mind. My purpose, rather, is to 
speak of a poet little known now, who once 
made claim to be, or whose friends assert 
was, Poe's precursor. That he came very 
near to being a considerable poet, and that 
he embodies more of the Poe atmosphere 
and melody than exist anywhere out of 
Poe's verse, will not be hard to prove. 

This author, as was true of Poe himself, 
belonged to the South ; but of his life I have 
only a slight record, which shows that he was 
a doctor and lived during his later years, at 
least, in Georgia. Before Poe was known, 
this poet — T. H. Chivers, M.D. — was writ- 
ing various weird and musical lyrics which 
I presume went from time to time through 
the Southern press. Nearly sixty years ago 
he began collecting them in book form ; and 
there were seven or eight volumes of them 
in all — a much more voluminous poetical 
legacy than Poe's. I have only seen one of 
[-12] 



The Precursor of Poe 



these volumes, but the following list gives 
the names of all the books Chivers wrote, 
so far as I can discover,* in the order of 
their appearance : 

" Nacooche, or the Beautiful Star, with 
other Poems," i2mo, pp. 153, New York, 
1837; "The Lost Pleiad, and other Poems," 
8vo, pp. 32, New York, 1845; " Eonchs of 
Ruby: A Gift of Love," 8vo, pp. 108, New 
York, 1 851; "Memoralia, or Phials of 
Amber," "Full of the Tears of Love," "A 
Gift for the Beautiful," 12 mo, pp. 168, 
Philadelphia, 1853; "Virginalia, or Songs 
of My Summer Nights and Gift of Love for 
the Beautiful," i2mo, pp. 132, Philadel- 
phia, 1853;^' The Sons of Usna: A Tragic 

* In the " Diversion of the Echo Club, " there is refer- 
ence to a seventh volume by Chivers, titled "Facets of 
Diamonds." Allibone's supplement mentions also an 
eighth, titled " Atlanta, or the True Blessed Island of 
Poesy " ; a Paul epic in three lustra ; Macon, Ga., 1855, 
8vo. [While this article is going to press I find a record 
of what must be this prolific poet's first book, and it is 
titled as follows, " Conrad and Eudora, or the Death of 
Alonzo. A Threnody," i6mo, pp. 144, Philadelphia, 
1834.] 

[13] 



In the Poe Circle 



Apotheosis in Five Acts," pp. 92, Philadel- 
phia, 1858. 

It would be difficult, ordinarily, to write 
about a poerfT from a consideration chiefly of 
one of his many volumes, and I feel the 
limitation this attempt imposes. But it is 
admitted, I believe, by the few who know 
the most of Chivers, that he put his char- 
acteristic, and probably his best work in 
the third volume which he issued — " The 
Eonchs of Ruby." And it is this volume 
which I have before me. The motto on the 
title-page of it is as follows : 

" The precious music of the heart. " 

— Wordsworth. 

The publishers were Spalding & Shepard of 
New York. The publishers of the remain- 
ing volumes I do not know, and I regret 
that I cannot give their title-pages as com- 
pletely as I have that of the volume which is 
at hand. 

It will be noticed at once that Chivers 
did not abide altogether by the dictionary, 
[14] 



The Precursor of Poe 



as no such word as " Eonchs " exists. But 
more of this tendency of his to speak large, 
sonorously, and with independence, will ap- 
pear later on. 

The most Poe-like and the best of his 
pieces in this volume is undoubtedly his 
" Lily Adair." If he really wrote this poem 
before Poe was known to him, the coinci- 
dence of accent, rhythm, and style with 
Poe's work suggests a curious study. Al- 
though the date of the book containing it 
was too late to show an antecedence to Poe, 
the separate pieces in the book must have 
preceded that year by a distance not now 
to be determined. It must be remembered, 
too, that the two volumes which were first 
issued by Chivers were given to the public 
— the second six years, and the first fourteen 
years before "The Eonchs of Ruby" ap- 
peared ; so that, if we properly antedate the 
poems Chivers collected in 1837, we find 
him writing in the Poe manner over sixty 
years ago — perhaps over seventy years ago. 



[15] 



In the Poe Circle 



But here is the poem, and it will tell, in 
part at least, its own story : 

LILY ADAIR. 
I. 

The Apollo Belvidere was adorning* 

The Chamber where Eulalie lay, 
While Aurora, the Rose of the Morning, 

Smiled full in the face of the Day. 
All around stood the beautiful Graces 

Bathing Venus — some combing her hair- 
While she lay in her husband's embraces 

A-moulding my Lily Adair — 

Of my fawn-like Lily Adair — 

Of my dove-like Lily Adair — 

Of my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 

II. 

Where the Oreads played in the Highlands, 
And the Water-Nymphs bathed in the streams, 

In the tall Jasper Reeds of the Islands — 
She wandered in life's early dreams. 

* It was a beautiful idea of the Greeks that the 
procreation of beautiful children might be pro- 
moted by keeping in their sleeping apartments an 
Apollo or Hyacinthus. In this way they not only 
patronized Art, but begat a likeness of their own 
love. 

[16] 



The Precursor of Poe 



For the Wood-Nymphs then brought from the 

Wildwood 
The turtle-doves Venus kept there, 
Which the Dryades tamed, in his childhood, 
For Cupid, to Lily Adair — 
To my dove-like Lily Adair — 
To my lamb-like Lily Adair — 
To my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 

III. 

Where the Opaline Swan circled, singing, 

With her eider-down Cygnets at noon, 
In the tall Jasper Reeds that were springing 

From the marge of the crystal Lagoon — 
Rich Canticles, clarion-like, golden, 

Such as only true love can declare, 
Like an Archangel's voice in times olden — 

I went with my Lily Adair — 

With my lamb-like Lily Adair — 

With my saint-like Lily Adair — 

With my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 

IV. 

Her eyes, lily-lidded, were azure, 

Cerulian, celestial, divine — 
Suffused with the soul-light of pleasure, 

Which drew all the soul out of mine. 
She had all the rich grace of the Graces, 

And all that they had not to spare ; 
For it took all their beautiful faces 

To make one for Lily Adair — 



In the Poe Circle 



For my Christ-like Lily Adair — 
For my Heaven-born Lily Adair — 
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 



She was fairer by far than that Maiden, 
The star-bright Cassiope, 

Who was taken by Angels to Aiden, 
And crowned with eternity. 

For her beauty the Sea-Nymphs offended, 
Because so surpassingly fair; 

And so death then the precious life ended 
Of my beautiful Lily Adair — 
Of my Heaven-born Lily Adair — 
Of my star-crowned Lily Adair — 
Of my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 



VI. 



From her Paradise-Isles in the ocean, 
To the beautiful City of On, 

By the mellifluent rivers of Goshen, 
My beautiful Lily is gone ! 

In her Chariot of Fire translated, 

Like Elijah, she passed through the air, 

To the City of God golden-gated — 
The Home of my Lily Adair — 
Of my star-crowned Lily Adair — 
Of my God-loved Lily Adair — 
Of my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 
[i81 



The Precursor of Poe 



VII. 

On the vista-path made by the Angels, 
In her Chariot of Fire, she rode, 

While the Cherubim sang their Evangels — 
To the Gates of the City of God. 

.For the Cherubim-band that went with her, 
I saw them pass out of the air — 

I saw them go up through the ether 
Into Heaven with my Lily Adair — 
With my Christ-like Lily Adair — 
With my God-loved Lily Adair — 
With my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 

Here, without question, is a typical breath 
of the Poe afflatus, which it needs no deli- 
cate ear to detect. The sacrifice of sense 
to sound is sometimes extreme, but the 
fault in a lesser degree was also Poe's. If 
you forget it or pardon it in "Lily Adair," 
you will feel the same flow of consonance 
and melody that was a. supreme and charac- 
teristic part of Poe's endowment. In an- 
other poem, which is entitled "Love," ap- 
pears the note or echo of "The Bells." I 
quote below a few stanzas from it : 
[19] 



In the Poe Circle 



What is it that makes the maiden 
So like Christ in Heaven above? 
Or, like Heavenly Eve in Aiden, 
Meeting Adam, blushing? — love — ' 

Love, love, love! 
Echo 

Love! 

What is it that makes the murmur 

Of the plaintive turtle-dove 
Fill our hearts with so much summer 
Till they melt to passion? — love — 

Love, love, love! 
Echo 

Love! 

Like the peace-song of the Angels 
Sent to one from Heaven above 
Who believes in Christ's Evangels 
Is the voice of one in love — 

Love, love, love! 
Echo 



Love! 



4 



If this poem merely followed "The 
Bells " we should call it a very weak wash- 
ing of Poe's chalice; but if it preceded that 
poem, it may have given to Poe the hint on 
which he wrought his far superior produc- 
tion. 

[20] 



The Precursor of Poe 



II. 

In " The Vigil of Aiden" drivers is dis- 
tinctly Poesque. He opens it as follows : 

In the Rosy Bowers of Aiden 
With her ruby lips love-laden, 
Dwelt the mild, the modest maiden, 

Whom Politian called Lenore. 
As the churches, with their whiteness, 
Clothe the earth with her uprightness, 
Clothed she now his soul with brightness,. 

Breathing out her heart's love-lore; 
For her lily limbs so tender, 
Like the moon in her own splendor 
Seemed all earthly things to render 

Bright as Eden was of yore. 

Then he cried out broken-hearted, 
In this desert world deserted, 
Though she had not yet departed — 
" Are we not to meet, dear maiden t 

In the Rosy Bowers of Aiden, 

As we did in days of yore?" 
And that modest, mild, sweet maiden, 
In the Rosy Bowers of Aiden, 
With her lily lips love-laden, 

Answered, "Yes! f orevermore ! " 
And the old time Towers of Aiden 

Echoed, "Yes! f orevermore!" 

[21] 



In the Poe Circle 



" The Vigil of Aiden " covers twenty-six 
pages of the "Eonchs of Ruby," so that it 
is difficult to sample it accurately. But I 
give a few additional extracts from it be- 
low: 

Oh ! the plaintive sweet beseeching 
Of those lips that death was bleaching 

Then her mother cried " My Daughter ! " 
As from earth the angels caught her — 
She had passed the Stygian water 
On the Asphodelian shore ! 
• •*••• 

Through the amethystine morning 

From the Jasper Reeds of Aiden 

Lofty piles of echoing thunder, 
Filling all the sky Heaven under — 
Drowning all the stars with wonder — 
Burthened with the name Lenore ! 



And the lips of that damned Demon, 
Like the Syren to the seamen, 
With the voice of his dear Leman, 
Answered, " Never — nevermore !' 

[22] 



The Precursor of Poe 



And the old time Towers of Aiden 
Echoed, " Never— nevermore ! " 



44 Through the luminiferous Gihon, 
To the Golden City high on 
High Eternity's Mount Zion, 

God built in the Days of Yore^- 
To the Golden Land of Goshen, 
Far beyond Time's upper ocean, 
Where, beholding our devotion 

Float the argent orbs all o'er — 
To Avillon's happy Valley, 
Where the breezes ever dally 
With the roses in each Alley — 

There to rest fore verm ore." 

While the Seraphim all waited 
At the portals congregated 
Of the City Golden-gated, 

Crying, " Rise with thy Lenore!" 

Did drivers strike first these cadences, 
now so familiar? Or were they Poe's in- 
vention who made them immortal in " The 
Raven"? In Chivers's poem of "Avalon" 
occur such passages as follow : 

For thou didst tread with fire-ensandalled feet, 
Star-crowned, forgiven, 
[23] 



In the Poe Circle 



The burning diapason of the stars so sweet, 
To God in Heaven ! 



The Violet of her soul-suffused eyes 

Was like that flower 
Which blows its purple trumpet at the skies 

For Dawn's first hour 



Four little Angels killed by one cold Death 
To make God glad ! 

Thou wert like Taleisin, " full of eyes, " 

Babbling of Love ! 
My beautiful, Divine Eumenides ! 

My gentle Dove ! 
• ••••• 

Kindling the high-uplifted stars at even 

With thy sweet song, 
The Angels, on the Sapphire Sills of Heaven, 

In rapturous throng 
Melted to milder meekness with the Seven 
Bright Lamps of God to glory given 
Leant down to hear thy voice roll up the leven, 
. Where thou art lying 

Beside the beautiful undying 
In the valley of the passing of the Moon, 
Oh ! Avalon ! my son ! my son ! 

On the poem titled " Lord Uther's Lament 

[24] 



The Precursor of Poe 



for Ella " the imprint and flavor, which we 
know as Poe's, are unquestionable. Mark, 
for instance, these stanzas : 

On the mild month of October 
Through the fields of Cooly Rauber 
By the great Archangel Huber, 

Such sweet songs of love did flow, 
From her golden lips preluded 
That my soul with, joy was flooded, 
As by God the earth was wooded 

In the days of long ago. 

All her soul's divinest treasure 
Poured she out then without measure, 
Till an ocean of deep pleasure 

Drowned my soul from all its woe ; 
Like Cecilia Inatella, 
In the Bowers of Boscabella, 
Sang the saintly Angel Ella 

In the days of long ago. 

Here, also, is a visible Poe touch from 
the poem of " The Dying Swan " : 

" Back to Hell, thou ghostly Horror ! " 

Thus I cried, dear Isadore ! 
Phantom of remorseless Sorrow ! 
Death might from thee pallor borrow, 

Borrow leanness evermore ! 

L25] 



In the Poe Circle 



In one of Bayard Taylor's witty accounts 
in "The Diversions of the Echo Club," 
Chivers is discussed. " The Ancient " says : 
" Why, we even had a hope that something 
wonderful would come out of Chivers! " 

Omnes — Chivers ? 

The Ancient — Have you never heard of 
Chivers? He is a phenomenon. . . . One 
of the finest images in modern poetry is in 
his " Apollo ": 

Like cataracts of adamant uplifted into mountains, 
Making oceans metropolitan for the splendor of the 
dawn. 

Further on "The Ancient" says: "I re- 
member also a stanza of his ' Rosalie 
Lee'": 

Many mellow Cydonian suckets, 

Sweet apples, anthosmal, divine, 
From the ruby-rimmed beryline buckets, 

Star-gemmed, lily-shaped, hyaline; 
Like the sweet, golden goblet found growing 

On the wild emerald cucumber tree, 
Rich, brilliant, like chrysoprase glowing 

Was my beautiful Rosalie Lee. 

[26] 



The Precursor of Poe 



It is not only in the swing of his verse, 
but in the epithets of this bizarre Georgia 
poet, and sometimes in the exact phrases, 
that we are confronted with the Poe man- 
ner. Such words as "Aiden," "abysmal," 
"Eulalie," "Asphodel," "Evangel," "Ava- 
lon," " Auber," and dozens of others require 
no comment or footnote. Two poets could 
not have fallen upon them by original 
choice, to say nothing of the atmosphere 
which was drawn around them. Of course 
there is no question that Poe used this ma- 
chinery and hypnotism better than Chivers 
did or could. One leaves an immortal halo 
around his name, and the other a nebulous 
mist which failed to condense into a star. 

Poe sometimes divorced sense from sonor- 
ity — so that he was called by Emerson " the 
jingle poet." Chivers carried this habit 
often to a grotesqueness fairly lunatic. 
Poe's nomenclature at least was sound. 
But Chivers's was so far-fetched and abnor- 
mal that meaning never entered many of 
[27] 



In the Poe Circle 



his words, and etymology did not preside 
over their capricious and erratic birth. 
Perhaps their mystery makes them more 
expressive and appalling. Who, for in- 
stance, can tell what is an "Eonch"? 
"Anthosmal" is not entirely normal; and 
some others which he uses are, apparently, 
merely the fruitage of his fertile fancy. 

Chivers made extreme pomp and majesty 
of expression his high aim. He could also 
be fluent when he revealed no message. 
You are reminded by him of Edwin Lear's 
"The Jumblies," and of the epithet quality 
of Lewis Carroll's " Jabberwock." But if 
he set the mould and pace for Poe, on which 
Poe erected his own fame, he will surely 
have some claim to remembrance. It is 
true the poetry, which is weird and mysti- 
fying, and which, to use Taylor's phrases, 
"has a hectic flush, a strange, fascinating, 
narcotic quality," is not now in the ascend- 
ant. When its fashion comes around again, 
as it may in nature's cyclic progress, will 

[28] 



The Precursor of Poe 



Poe and Chi vers stand together as our 
poetic Castor and Gemini, or "Heavenly 
Twins"? 

One event which suggests Chivers's prior- 
ity to Poe is the fact that Bryant in his 
" Selections from American Poetry, " made 
in 1840, gave Poe no place, while Chivers's 
first book of verse appeared several years 
before that date; and Poe was hardly 
known as a poet before 1844. 

Chivers's full name and title was Thomas 
Holley Chivers, M.D. Somehow his fame 
went to England early ; for there has been 
for years, it is said, a complete set of his 
works on the shelves of the British Mu- 
seum. And a complete set of them, it is 
thought, can be found nowhere else. So 
hard has it been to pick up the facts in this 
curious Georgia poet's life that we cannot 
find them in Allibone's or Appleton's dic- 
tionaries, though the editor of the latter one 
made a diligent effort to produce them. 

But it seems Swinburne's knowledge of 
[29] 



In the Poe Circle 



drivers' s work began before he himself was 
so very widely known. When Bayard 
Taylor was in England, nearly thirty years 
ago, the name of Chivers happened, casually, 
to be mentioned in Swinburne's presence. 
"Oh, Chivers, Chivers," said Swinburne, in 
his peculiar voice, "if you know Chivers, 
give me your hand." Mr. Stedman says 
that an allusion to Chivers in Swinburne's 
hearing causes the author of "Atalanta in 
Calydon " to jump up and down in his 
chair, when he will repeat with great hilar- 
ity and gusto whole passages from Chivers 's 
books. 

It has been suggested to me by one critic 
and author that Swinburne not only re- 
peated them, but that he has put in his own 
poetry many marks of their influence. This 
is something near to a laurel or bay-leaf for 
Chivers, if he was really so forceful. But 
the imperfect crown, even if it remain so, 
must be enlarged if his friends can prove, in 

addition, that he was the precursor of Poe. 
[30] 



The Poe- Chivers Controversy. 

Very few people to-day, even in literary 
circles, know anything about Thomas Hol- 
ley Chivers, M.D. And even these know 
very little. He was a poet of at least one 
book before Bryant made that brief anthol- 
ogy of sixty or more American poets in 
1840 — mostly names that have vanished 
long since into the everlasting inane — but 
he was not there represented. His first 
volume of verse appeared in 1837; though 
fugitive lyrics from his pen were doubtless 
afloat on the periodical seas long before 
that year. Poems over his signature were 
contributed as late as 1853 to Graham's 
Magazine and to the Waverley Magazine of 
Boston. 

It is, however, simply repeating an indu- 
bitable fact, to say that a large part of the 
[31] 



In the Poe Circle 



poetry of Chivers is mainly trash — of no ac- 
count whatever, and not above the reams of 
stanzas which from time immemorial have 
decorated as "original" the country news- 
paper's poet's corner. But now and then 
he struck a note quite above this dead and 
wide-pervading commonplace; and, when- 
ever he did, the verses brought forth were 
apt to suggest the mechanism and flavor of 
Poe. He not only said at various times — 
-especially in a series of letters which he 
wrote to Mr. Rufus W. Griswold, Poe's 
biographer, and which are now in the pos- 
session of his son * — that Poe had borrowed 
largely from him, but he put the transac- 
tion in much bolder terms. The charge of 
flagrant plagiarism of himself by Poe, in 
respect even of "The Raven" and "Anna- 
bel Lee," was not withheld, but was vio- 
lently advanced by Chivers. Nor was he 

*Mr. W. M. Griswold, of Cambridge, Mass., to 
whom I am greatly indebted for many of these 
facts. 

[32] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

alone in making this charge. Some of his 
friends took it up and repeated it with a 
vehemence and an ability worthy of a 
most sacred cause. There is circumstance 
enough about this, to say nothing of its 
singularity, to elevate Chivers into some- 
thing of a topic — one worth considering at 
least for a leisure moment. 

What is known about this author is, that 
he published seven or eight volumes of 
poems between, and inclusive of, 1837 and 
1858 — a period of twenty-one years. Many 
of them antedate Poe's period of literary 
activity, and not a few have the Poe afflatus 
and melody so strongly inherent in them 
that even the non-critical reader could not 
mistake their related quality. In Chivers* s 
"Lily Adair," which crowns his high- water 
mark of poetic achievement, the Poe man- 
ner stands out conspicuously. This refrain 
from it, for instance, varied in some details 
at the end of each stanza, illustrates what I 

mean: 

[33] 



In the Poe Circle 



" In her chariot of fire translated, 

Like Elijah, she passed through the air, 
To the city of God golden-gated — 
The home of my Lily Adair — 
Of my star-crowned Lily Adair — 
Of my God-loved Lily Adair — 
Of my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair." 

Olivers, in this poem, and in others 
which resemble Poe's work, made Biblical 
allusion a dominant trait to an extent that 
Poe did not, and really attained, though 
not always with perfect sanity, to much of 
Poe's witchery and charm. 

It is not my intention in this article to 
repeat the history and evidence which I 
presented and published elsewhere a few 
years ago concerning drivers' s claims 
against Poe. It will be sufficient for the 
purpose now in hand if I report, as briefly 
as may be, what Chivers and his friends, 
and those who antagonized the Chivers as- 
sumption, had to say about it nearly fifty 
years ago. 

In a quite able and stalwart way Chivers 

[34] 






The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

himself opened the contest, under the nom 
de plume of "Fiat Justitia," in the Waverley 
Magazine of July 30, 1853. In a long arti- 
cle, entitled "Origin of Poe's 4 Raven,' " he 
claims that the laudators of Poe — particu- 
larly N. P. Willis, who said of " The Ra- 
ven " that it " electrified the world of imagi- 
native readers, and has become the type of 
a school of poetry of its own " — "betray not 
only a deplorable ignorance of the current 
literature of the day, but the most abject 
poverty of mind in the knowledge of the 
true nature of poetry." He then quotes 
from his own book, "The Lost Pleiad," the 
following lines from the poem " To Allegra 
in Heaven," which was published in 1842, 
a few years before "The Raven " appeared. 
He asserts that these lines " show the intel- 
ligent reader the true and only source from 
which Poe obtained his style " in that 
poem: 

" Holy angels now are bending to receive thy soul 
ascending 
[35] 



r 



In the Poe Circle 



Up to Heaven to joys unending, and to bliss 
which is divine ; 
While thy pale cold form is fading under Death's 
dark wings now shading 
Thee with gloom which is pervading this poor 
broken heart of mine ! 
And as God doth lift the spirit up to Heaven there 
to inherit 
Those rewards which it doth merit, such as 
none have reaped before ; 
Thy dear father will to-morrow lay thy body with 
deep sorrow, 
In the grave which is so narrow, there to rest 
forevermore." 

In this article drivers also says that Poe 
is not entitled to priority in the use of the 
refrain "Nevermore." It was Chivers, he 
says (still writing tinder his now, de plume) , 
who originated this in a poem entitled " La- 
ment on the Death of My Mother," pub- 
lished in 1837 in the Middletown, Conn., 
Sentinel and Witness. The following extract 
from it is the proof he offers : 

" Not in the mighty realms of human thought, 
Nor in the kingdom of the earth around ; 
Nor where the pleasures of the world are sought, 
Nor where the sorrows of the earth are found — 
[36] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

Nor on the borders of the great deep sea, 
Wilt thou return again from heaven to me — 
No, nevermore f" 

The reader, I imagine, will be likely to 
think that Poe gave this refrain a more 
potent and appealing quality. 

It is urged that Poe knew of Chivers's 
"The Lost Pleiad, and Other Poems," as he 
"spoke of it in the highest terms in the 
Broadway Journal, in 1 845 . " The writer ad- 
mits that " Poe was a great artist, a con- 
summate genius; no man that ever lived 
having possessed a higher sense of the 
poetic art than he did." But he urges that 
this fact must not obliterate the other; viz., 
that he took the liberty, arrogated by gen- 
ius, to borrow. 

After saying that Chivers (he speaks of 
himself all along as another person) was 
the first poet to make the trochaic rhythm 
express an elegiac theme, and the first to 
use the euphonic alliteration adopted by 

Poe, he cites the following extract from a 

[37] 



In the Poe Circle 



poem of his published before Poe's master- 
piece in verse appeared : 

" As an egg, when broken, never can be mended, 
but must ever 
Be the same crushed egg forever, so shall this 
dark heart of mine, 
Which, though broken, is still breaking, and shall 
nevermore cease aching, 
For the sleep which has no waking — for the 
sleep which now is thine ! " 

To step up to " The Raven " from so gro- 
tesquely low a level, one might easily con- 
sider — even were the charge of plagiarism 
proved — a complete absolution of blame. 

And, if this is admitted to be the foun- 
tain whence Poe got his form, an irreverent 
critic might say he reproduced it with un- 
surpassable effect and dissociated from it 
the atmosphere of Humpty-Dumpty. 

In the W aver ley Magazine oi August 13th 
of the same year, " Fiat Justitia " (Chivers) 
is taken in hand by "H. S. C." and "J. J. 
P.," on behalf of Poe. The difference in 

altitude and genius of the two writers is 

[38] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

emphasized by them. Poe's personal char- 
acter is palliated ; but the question of prior- 
ity in the use of the Poe alliterative rhythm 
is not argued. The only reply touching 
this is by the first of the two writers, who 
shows that "Nevermore," as a refrain, is 
nobody's trademark, since it has been used 
even earlier than Chi vers' s employment of 
it. As an instance buttressing this state- 
ment, he offers the following stanzas from 
a very old scrap-book in which the poem of 
which they are part is credited to the Che- 
shire, England, Herald: 

" Now the holy pansies bloom 
Round about thy lonely tomb ; 
All thy little woes are o'er; 
We shall meet thee here no more — 
Nevermore ! 

But the robin loves to sing 
Near thee in the early spring; 
Thee his song will cheer no more 
By our trellised cottage door — 

Nevermore ! " 

The same writer asks if his antagonist 

[39] 



In the Poe Circle 



cannot, by his form of logic, prove that Poe 
stole his poem of "The Bells" from the 
nursery rhyme of "Ding Dong Bell." A 
week later than this, " Fiat Justitia " reap- 
pears in the Waverley Magazine, together 
with an ally signing himself " Felix For- 
resti" (possibly Chivers again*), who, see- 
ing him attacked by two knights of the 
pen, "takes up the cudgels" for Chivers. 
In fact, to be more truthful, all these writ- 
ers — speaking metaphorically — take up 
pitchforks and machetes. Their Billings- 
gate style savors of the Arizona Howler, and 
seems impossible to Boston. In this week's 
onslaught, however, no point of note occurs, 
except that the latter writer exhumes from 
a poem by Chivers, upon Poe, which was 
published in the Georgia Citizen about 1850, 
the following lines : 

* That an author could so write of himself, under 
masked signatures, is surprising. But the articles 
were substantially made up from his letters to Mr. 
R. W. Griswold, Poe's biographer. 
[40] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

"" Like the great prophet in the desert lone, 
He stood here waiting for the golden morning ; 
From Death's dark vale I hear his distant moan 
Coming to scourge the world he was adorning — 
Scorning, in glory now, their impotence of scorn- 
ing." 
And now in apotheosis divine, 
He stands enthroned upon the immortal moun- 
tains 
Of God's eternity, forevermore to shine — 
Star-crowned, all purified with oil-anointings — 
Drinking with Ulalume from out the eternal 
fountains. 

And the writer adds : " Until both . . . cham- 
pions [of Poe] can write just such lines as 
these, they had better ' shut up shop.' " 

But neither side " shut up shop " just 
then. In the issue of September ioth, 
"Fiat Justitia" and "J. J. P." reappear. 
The former occupies nearly three columns 
with extracts from drivers' s poems to show 
the Poe manner, and to prove that it was in 
these poems Poe found it. The following 
sample is from " The Lost Pleiad " : 

" And though my grief is more than vain, 
Yet shall I never cease to grieve ; 
[41] 



In the Poe Circle 



Because no more, while I shall live, 

Will I behold thy face again ! 
No more while I have life or breath, 

No more till I shall turn to dust ! 
But I shall see thee after death, 

And in the heavens above I trust." 

The following extract is from drivers' s 
" Memoralia " : 

" I shall nevermore see pleasure, 
Pleasure nevermore but pain — 
Pleasure, losing that dear treasure 
Whom I loved here without measure, 
Whose sweet eyes were Heaven's own azure, 
Speaking, mild, like sunny rain ; 
I shall nevermore see pleasure 
For his coming back again ! " 

Of "The Lost Pleiad" volume, "Fiat 
Justitia" says that a Cincinnati reviewer 
declared, some years ago, that "there is 
nothing in the wide scope of literature, 
where passion, pathos, and pure art are 
combined, more touchingly tender than this 
whole unsurpassed and (in our opinion) un- 
surpassable poem." 

Another sample of Chivers's pre-Poe 
[42] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

likeness the writer finds in a poem titled 

"Ellen -££yre," which was printed in a 

Philadelphia paper in 1836. He gives this 
stanza from it : 

" Like the Lamb's wife, seen in vision, 

Coming down from heaven above, 
Making earth like Fields Elysian, 

Golden city of God's love — 
Pure as jasper — clear as crystal — 

Decked with twelve gates richly rare — 
Statued with twelve angels vestal — 

Was the form of Ellen JEyre — 

Gentle girl so debonair — 
Whitest, brightest of all cities, saintly angel, 
Ellen iEyre." 

Very many other Poe-resembling ex- 
tracts are given; but these must suffice 
from the verse. To show that Poe bor- 
rowed from Chi vers in a prose criticism, 
our writer copies the following passage 
from an article by Chivers in the Atlanta 
Luminary : 

" There is poetry in the music of the birds — in 
the diamond radiance of the evening star — in the 
sun-illumined whiteness of the fleecy clouds — in 
[43] 



In the Poe Circle 



the open frankness of the radiant fields — in the 
soft, retiring mystery of the vales — in the cloud- 
sustaining grandeur of the many-folded hills— in 
the revolutions of the spheres — in the roll of rivers, 
and the run of rills." 

Now look on this, from Poe's "The 
Poetic Principle " : 

" He recognizes the ambrosia, which nourishes 
his soul, in the bright orbs that shine in heaven 
... in the waving of the grain-fields — in the blue 
distance of mountains — in the grouping of clouds 
... in the twinkling of the half -hidden brooks — 
in the gleaming of silver rivers — in the repose of 
sequestered lakes — in the star-mirroring depths of 
lonely wells ... in the song of birds — in the sigh- 
ing of the night- wind ... in the fresh breath of 
the woods, etc." 

Triumphantly the writer says, " Now . . . 
you will no longer wonder where Poe ob- 
tained his very delightful knowledge of the 
art of poetry." Not only the Chivers prose 
extract, but also the verse passages quoted 
by him were written, he affirms, " long an- 
terior " to the parallel passages in Poe. 

In the Waver ley of September 24th fol- 
[44] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

lowing, "J. J. P." quotes Poe as saying of 
"The Raven," "I pretend to no originality 
in either the rhythm or metre." He also 
quotes Poe as saying of the passage by 
Chivers containing the egg simile : " That 
the lines very narrowly missed sublimity we 
will grant ; that they came within a step of 
it we admit; but, unhappily, the step is 
that one step which, time out of mind, has 
intervened between the sublime and the 
ridiculous." 

The whole controversy was continued 
with warmth in the Waverley Magazine of 
October i, 1853, by "Fiat Justitia," who 
began it. But I am told, too, that it was 
reopened in a later volume. As the Maga- 
zine office files were long ago destroyed by 
fire, I cannot say how the renewed contro- 
versy fared ; though it probably closed with 
nothing fresher than new epithets coined 
by the combatants. Nor is anything that is 
particularly new added by this article. It 

was mainly a threshing of the old straw, 

[45] 



In the Poe Circle 



which, all the way through, was supple- 
mented by a rhythm analysis that would 
take too much space to follow. From the 
Chivers poem " To Allegra in Heaven " he 
adduces this heretofore unquoted line, 

" Like some snow-white cloud just under Heaven 
some breeze has torn asunder " — 

which he thinks suggested Poe's two lines: 

"And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each 
purple curtain " — 

" Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear dis- 
course so plainly." 

Chivers, it seems, wrote for a variety of 
periodicals, among which were Graham's 
Magazine and Peterson's; and in the year 
this controversy was raging he contributed 
poems to the Waver ley Magazine itself. In 
" Fiat Justitia's " contention, it is said that 
Poe was obliged to reply in the Broadway 
Journal, in defence of the plagiaristic 
charge, to some writer using somewhere 

the nom de plume of "Outis." There was, 

[46] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

in connection with the Chivers assumption 
and advocacy, a surprisingly earnest and 
hot assault. Only one more of these mili- 
tant articles (possibly by Chivers again) 
shall I notice here. He, signing himself 
"Philo Veritas" in the Waver ley Magazine 
of October 8th, 1853, communicates a 
" Railroad Song " taken from Graham y s> 
which was written by Chivers, and which 
he terms " a truly original poem." He does 
so in part for the purpose of " exposing one 
of the most pitiful plagiarisms " known — 
the "wishy-washy thing" entitled "Rail- 
road Lyric," that had appeared in Putnam *s 
Monthly of the previous May. Here are 
some lines from the one hundred and thir- 
teen composing Chivers' s poem: 

" All aboard ! Yes ! Tingle, tingle, 
Goes the bell as we all mingle — 
No one sitting solely single — 
As the steam begins to fizzle — 
With a kind of sighing sizzle — 
Ending in a piercing whistle — 

[47] 



In the Poe Circle 



And the cars begin to rattle, 
And the springs go tittle-tattle — 
Driving off the grazing cattle, 
As if Death were Hell pursuing 
To his uttermost undoing, 
Down the iron road to ruin — 
With a clitter, clatter, clatter, 
Like the Devil beating batter 
Up in Hell in iron platter, 
As if something was the matter; 
Then it changes to a clanking, 
And a clinking and a clanking, 
And a clanking and a clinking — 

As if Hell for our damnation, 
Had come down with desolation 

While the engine overteeming 
With excruciating screaming, 
Spits his vengeance out in steaming. 
• ••••■ 

Still repeating clitter, clatter 
Clitter, clatter, clitter, clatter 
As if something was the matter — 
While the woodlands all are ringing, 
And the birds forget their singing, 
And away to Heaven go winging. 



Then returns again to clatter 
Clitter, clatter, clitter, clatter 
[48] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 



Like the Devil beating batter 
Up in Hell in iron platter — 
Which subsides into a clankey, 
And a clinkey and a clankey 
And a clankey and a clinkey 
And a clinkey, clankey, clankey — 
Then to witchey, witchey, witchey, 
Chewey-witchey, chewey-witchey — 
Chewey-witchey, witchey, witchey, 
Then returns again to fizzle, 
With a kind of sighing sizzle — 
Ending in a piercing whistle — 
And the song that I now offer 
For Apollo's golden coffer — 
With the friendship that I proffer — 
Is for riding on a Rail." 

There was one poem of Chivers's, entitled 
"The Little Boy Blue," copied in the Wa- 
verley Magazine, which is singularly satu- 
rated with the nomenclature and manner 
that Poe affected. Here are a few illustra- 
tive stanzas out of the thirty-seven to which 
it extended : 

" The little boy blue 

Was the boy that was born 
In the forests of Dew 
On the Mountains of Morn. 

'[49] 



In the Poe Circle 



There the pomegranate bells — 
They were made to denote 

How much music now dwells 
In the nightingale's throat. 

On the green banks of On, 

By the city of No, 
There he taught the wild swan 

Her white bugle to blow. 

Where the cherubims rode 

On four lions of gold, 
There this cherub abode 

Making new what was old. 

When the angels came down 

To the shepherds at night, 
Near to Bethlehem Town 

Clad in garments of light, 
There the little Boy Blue 

Blew aloud on his horn, 
Songs as soft as the dew 

From the Mountains of Morn, 



But another bright place 
I would stop to declare, 

For the Angel of the Face 
Of Jehovah was there. 

[50] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

Now this happy soul dwells 
Where the waters are sweet, 

Near the Sevenfold Wells 
Made by Jesus's feet." 

Not only are the Poe phrases here, but 
here, too, is the tossing, tumultuous imagi- 
nation of William Blake. I know of no 
writer who, so much as Chivers did, fell 
into Blake's phantasmagorial extravagance. 

The upshot of this cursory consideration 
of the voluminous controversy — beginning 
before Poe died, and virulently continued 
for some years after his death — shows that 
Poe knew Chi vers' s work and paid attention 
to him in more than one reference. The 
literary representatives of the minor poet 
appear, also, to bring forward some strik- 
ing examples of verse which he wrote, 
which was outwardly like Poe's, and which 
considerably antedated "The Bells," "The 
Raven," and "Annabel Lee," on which 
Poe's poetic fame rests. 

What conclusion must be drawn from 
[51] 



In the Poe Circle 



these facts? Each reader will be certain to 
make his own. No critic will doubt that to 
Poe belonged the wonderful magic and 
mastery of this species of song. If to him 
who says a thing best the thing belongs, no 
one will hesitate to decide that Poe is en- 
titled to the bays which crown him. It is a 
fact that, with all the contemporary airing 
of the subject, it is Poe's celebrity and not 
Chivers's that remains. The finer instinct 
and touch are what the world takes account 
of. Chi vers, except at rare intervals, did 
not approach near enough to the true alti- 
tude. He put no boundary between what 
was grotesque and what was inspired. He 
was too short-breathed to stay poised on the 
heights, and was but accidentally poetic. 
But we may accord him a single leaf of 
laurel, if no more, for what he came so near 
achieving in the musical lyric of " Lily 
Adair." Truly enough Shakespeare says: 

" The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact ..." 
[52] 



The Poe-Chivers Controversy 

Their mental and spiritual territories inter- 
blend. The same frenzy is the endowment 
of each — as charcoal is in essence the dia- 
mond. As you differentiate and develop it 
you make your titular distinction and place. 
But it is not a small thing to have been 
mingled in some slight association with 
genius, and to have some credit you with 
it. In an Oriental poem the clay pipe 
speaks of its contentment, since it cannot 
be a rose, of having, by a fortunate associa- 
tion, attained to some of the rose's fra- 
grance. 



Poe's Opinion of " The Raven/' 

There seems to be no end of interest in 
Poe legends and Poeana. Poe is the one 
American poet — Whitman, perhaps, being 
a second — whose work has produced a cult ; 
and, at the same time, exercises a fascina- 
tion which is contagious and indescribable. 
Some might possibly call it hypnotic. He 
uses what Emerson calls " polarized words " ; 
and, while they haunt the mind, and even 
the very soul of the reader, they virtually 
create an atmosphere as distinct as that — 
though not like that — in one of Corot's 
landscapes. 

Poe contributed little to human thought. 
He had no ethical message whatever to de- 
liver. He could not have written Words- 
worth's "Ode on the Intimations of Human 
Immortality" — which is as pious, though 
not burdensomely so, as it is poetic. What 

[54] 



Poe's Opinion of "The Raven" 

his poetry is, is not what Matthew Arnold 
defined poetry to be — "a criticism of life." 
It is more like a series of musical diversions 
— fluent, sensuous, weird, sorrowful, and 
sepulchral, even subterranean almost in 
passages. But what differentiates it most 
specifically is, that it is sensuous. It 
moves no one to do anything; it, on the 
contrary, makes you feel something. In 
reading it you mourn for a vanished Aiden 
or a lost Lenore. 

It is a curious fame that rests so much 
upon so little — at least, upon so small a 
body of work. For, if you take " The Ra- 
ven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells" 
from Poe's poems — if you do not consider 
these at all — what would his poetic fame 
have been? Could it have been very 
great ? 

But with these poems he did undoubtedly 
put an imprint on the literature of his day 
and time that is matchless. Its influence 
is, at any rate, a more potent force in Eng- 

[55^ 



In the Poe Circle 



land and France than any other poet of our 
nation has yet attained to. Perhaps the 
weird and eerie has naturally upon the hu- 
man mind a more durable and clinging hold 
than the things that are sober and earthly. 
However this may be, " The Raven " alone, 
as a poem, seems to go on in people's minds 
with a constant crescendo of admiration 
from one year and generation to another. 

We get a good deal from time to time 
about the way it was composed. Persons 
who knew Poe, and those who have heard 
orally from them what he said, have given 
us many edifying stories concerning Poe's 
life at the time this poem was written, and 
the circumstances under which it was com- 
posed. 

There are but two American poems that 
I can think of whose bringing forth has 
been talked of anywhere near so much as 
this poem's birth has been, if any other 
than these three have been talked of in this 

respect at all. The two I allude to are, of 

[56] 



Poe's Opinion of " The Raven " 

course, Bryant's " Thanatopsis " and Long- 
fellow's "Excelsior." 

Does anybody remember, though — but 
this is an "aside" — that Emerson's "Hum- 
ble Bee " when it first appeared opened 
thus? 

" Fine Humble Bee, 
Fine Humble Bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me," 

instead of — in the vastly improved version — 

" Burly, dozing Humble Bee, 
Where thou art is clime for me." 

How those two new adjectives, encyclo- 
pedic almost in their bottled essence of de- 
scription, and displacing "fine," strength- 
ened the piece! But you will find, in the 
very first edition of Dana's " Household 
Book of Poetry," that the poem is printed 
in the first fashion — as it stood I suppose in 
"The Dial," before it was revised for 
Emerson's first volume of verses. 

But I must return to Poe and " The Ra- 
ven." The brief story I have to tell about 

[57] 



In the Poe Circle 



them I got orally from an author who once 
had some vogue, but who is now nearly 
completely forgotten. His name was at 
one time in many of our best periodicals; 
and the old Democratic Review once had a 
considerable critique upon his poetic posi- 
tion and promise. He was likened by the 
writer of the review article to Shelley and 
Keats ; and there were passages of his verse 
given which brought out, as I remember, a 
considerable of the suggested resemblance. 
Probably, though, his poem of " The Sword 
of Bunker Hill " — which was set to music — 
best typifies his prevailing poetic style, 
which was, in the main, noted for being 
eloquent and patriotic. 

William Ross Wallace (for it is he to 
whom I refer) was not unlike Poe in both 
temperament and habits. He was not a lit- 
tle like him in physique — in brightness of 
the eye, and in a superb courtliness of man- 
ner. He had the same, or a similar, irreso- 
lute will; but he was a delightful compan- 
[58] 



Poe's Opinion of "The Raven" 

ion to meet if you met him at the right 
time. He was, I believe, a Southerner by 
birth, as Poe was by acclimation. 

Wallace told me (in the early war-time 
when I first met him) that he knew Poe 
tolerably well. They were, he said, on 
pleasant and familiar terms ; and, it would 
seem (as Keats and Reynolds did), they 
read over to each other their not yet pub- 
lished poetical work. It was in obedience 
to this habit that Poe, on meeting Wallace 
one day, told him in some such words as 
these (I will be sponsor now only for their 
substance, and not for their form, or for the 
form of the colloquy between the known 
and the now-unknown poet) : 

" Wallace," said Poe, " I have just written 
the greatest poem that ever was written." 

"Have you? " said Wallace. "That is a 
fine achievement." 

" Would you like to hear it? " said Poe. 

"Most certainly," said Wallace. 

Thereupon Poe began to read the so to-be 

[59] 



In the Poe Circle 



famous verses in his best way — which I be- 
lieve was always an impressive and capti- 
vating way. When he had finished he 
turned to Wallace for his approval of them 
— when Wallace said : 

"Poe — they are fine; uncommonly fine.'* 

"Fine?" said Poe, contemptuously. "Is 
that all you can say for this poem? I tell 
you it's the greatest poem that was ever 
written." 

And then they separated — not, however, 
before Wallace had tried to placate, with 
somewhat more pronounced praise, the pet- 
tish poet. 

And to-day there are critics who say — not 
knowing Poe's own opinion of "The Ra- 
ven " — that it is " the greatest poem ever 
written." Whether it is or not, it bids fair 
to be the one that will be the most and the 
longest talked about. 



[60] 




THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS 



Thomas Holley Chivers. 

Until a recent date it has been difficult 
to give any definite or detailed account of 
Olivers, the eccentric Southern poet. The 
few relatives and friends of the author — 
and he was quite a voluminous author, for 
a poet — have not been aware that there was 
much popular interest in him; or else, for 
reasons of their own, they have not wished 
to gratify this curiosity as to his life. His 
name is not to be found in any biographical 
cyclopedia, though it is mentioned in Alli- 
bone's "Dictionary of Authors," a book 
that limits its function mainly to titles and 
names. 

When Appleton's "Cyclopedia of Ameri- 
can Biography " was being compiled, a few 
years ago, the editors were unable to find 
enough facts about Chivers to warrant the 

[61] 



In the Poe Circle 



insertion of even a short paragraph. All 
that a limited number of literary men knew 
about him was that such a man had been 
born early in the century ; that he was of a 
Southern family, but had spent some time 
in New England; that he was a physician 
in full standing ; and finally — a fact of more 
interest and importance — that he wrote 
lyrics which, when he employed his best 
style, were strangely like Poe's. Added to 
this piquant revelation was the strong as- 
sertion of himself, and of competent and 
distinguished persons, that his style was 
not borrowed from Poe, but that it ap- 
peared prior to Poe's characteristic work, 
and therefore set the pace by which Poe 
became famous ; giving the suggestion from 
which grew the latter's mystic fascination. 
To be brought into relations like these 
may not constitute fame, but it is a sort of 
second cousin to it, and must always beget 
an alluring interest in the author who came 
so near to a high goal. 

[62] 



Thomas Holley Chivers 



The facts which the reviewer now finds 
at his disposal are due in great measure to 
Mr. John Quincy Adams, of Washington, 
Ga., a relative of Chivers, and himself a 
writer of skill and vigor. The father of 
the poet was Col. Robert Chivers, who had 
three sons and four daughters. Thomas 
Holley, the eldest, was born in 1807, two 
years before Poe, at Digby Manor, a few 
miles south of Washington, Ga. His pro- 
genitors were English on both sides, and 
settled originally in Virginia. On the 
mother's side the name was Digby, her an- 
cestors having been prominent in England 
during the latter part of the seventeenth 
century. 

Mr. Adams states that Colonel Chivers 
was a rich planter and mill-owner. Recog- 
nizing the genius of his son, he became 
over-indulgent to him, so that the young 
man was imbued with a full sense of his 
own importance. He graduated with dis- 
tinction in medicine at Transylvania, now 
[63] 



In the Poe Circle 



the University of Kentucky, in or about 
1828. The statement which has been made 
that he was a graduate of Yale is erroneous. 
" He cared only for the scientific cult of his 
profession," Mr. Adams says, "though to 
the day of his death he never failed to serve 
gratis those too poor to hire a doctor. 
After a few years' practice he chose litera- 
ture as an occupation, and having always 
abundant means for his solitary and tem- 
perate life, he lived and died in the pride 
of his intellectuality. He despised all 
mere pretense toward scholarship. Among 
ordinary people he was a most ' unclub- 
bable ' man, but among his equals he was a 
charming companion." 

His correspondence discloses the fact 
that he was held in high esteem, and that 
he was an authority on a wide range of 
subjects, particularly the Hebrew language 
and literature. Many of these letters, now 
in the possession of Mr. Adams, were writ- 
ten by men of note to Chivers, and among 
[64] 



Thomas Holley Chivers 



them is one by Poe himself, pathetic with 
lament, mentioning the Stylus^ which he 
intended to start and of which so much has 
been written. In this Poe says: "Please 
lend me $50 for three months — I am so 
poor and friendless I am half distracted; 
but I shall be all right when you and I start 
our magazine." (It was $500 for which Poe 
had asked Halleck when he started the 
Broadway Journal.} 

At the age of twenty-five Chivers went 
North to live, shortly afterward marrying 
Miss Harriet Hunt, who is described as 
having been a woman of great beauty. 
Four children were born to them. The 
tragical fact is mentioned that these chil- 
dren were all carried off by a virulent form 
of typhoid fever while the family was stay- 
ing at Digby Manor. A son and two 
daughters were afterward born and grew 
up. When the son died, his four children 
were adopted by his second sister, Mrs. 

Isabel Brown, now living in Decatur, Ga. 
[65] 



In the Poe Circle 



The other daughter, Mrs. Potter, lives in 
Connecticut. 

In 1856 Chivers returned to the South 
and made his final home in Decatur. A 
physiological professorship in a medical 
college in Savannah was offered him, but 
his health was impaired, and he was 
obliged to decline the appointment. Mr. 
Adams mentions that he was a painter, and 
that he made frequent portraits of his fam- 
ily. He also made some notable pen-and- 
ink sketches. He appears to have had an 
inventive turn of mind as well, for he origi- 
nated a machine for unwinding the fibre 
from silk cocoons, a device of so much 
merit that it received a silver cup at one of 
the Southern expositions. 

It is not pleasant to recall the fact that 
the poet's library, being on the line of 
Sherman's march to the sea, was destroyed 
or confiscated, and that all his manuscripts 
were more or less injured. This was after 
Chivers 's death, which occurred at Decatur f 



[66] 



Thomas Holley Chivers 



December 18th, 1858. His demise received 
wide notice in the North, and the breadth 
of his territory of renown among scholars is 
indicated by the fact that Professor Gier- 
low, a Danish author, wrote a beautiful 
poem on the event. 

William Gilmore Simms, at that time one 
of the greatest names in Southern litera- 
ture, took much interest in Chivers, and 
called him "the wild Mazeppa of letters." 
He frequently rallied his friend on his 
choice of strange words and on "the mo- 
notony of his sorrow." In good-humored 
retaliation, no doubt, the doctor advised 
Simms to cease writing stupid novels and 
"take up literature as a pleasure." 

Chivers 's face was of poetic cast. The 
fine lines of the mouth alone gave it dis- 
tinction, and the intent, piercing eye and 
dark, flowing hair, as well as the contour of 
the head, 'with its massive forehead, com- 
pleted an intellectual ensemble at least 
competent for fame. 
[67] 



In the Poe Circle 



The pathetic conclusion of the whole 
matter of his life and work is embodied in 
the one word "almost." He did not quite 
touch the high and ambitious empyrean at 
which he aimed. There were great visions 
before him, but he could not put them into 
perfectly clarified expression. At times he 
nearly found the vehicle of words that up- 
lifts us, but some lack of needed impulse or 
finish, some want of surrounding atmos- 
phere, or some other partial defect, tells 
the story of defeat. But there is room 
enough for a hospitable memory of him, and 
reason enough to honor his daring. We 
may put him at least in the Poe rubric, and 
recall, in exalting Poe, a few of the typical 
attributes which gave Chivers his place in 
poetry. 



[68] 



Baudelaire and Poe: A Brief 
Parallel. 

If we except Boetie and Montaigne, who 
were distinct contemporaries and personal 
friends, one may search very far through 
literary annals to find two writers with 
closer affinities of thought than Baudelaire 
and Poe. The French author seems to 
have been born to celebrate and continue 
the Poesque aroma and effluence. 

Not merely their tastes and manner were 
alike; their careers, too, have close resem- 
blances. Poe was born in 1809, and his 
French admirer in 1821 — a dozen years 
later. Baudelaire's father dying when the 
son was but six years old placed him very 
soon under new control. He found himself, 
the year after this event, under the rule of 
a stepfather. It is said this foster-parent, 
[69] 



In the Poe Circle 



who was Colonel Aupick, was proud of his 
stepson, but wished to give him a military 
career. The determination on the boy's 
part to be a poet was, however, dominant ; 
and this collision of plans may have stirred 
him to the irregularities that followed, and 
led to his expulsion from college. 

An English writer said some years ago 
that Colonel Aupick, having been promoted 
to a general's position, could have given his 
stepson a rapid advancement if he had been 
willing to join the army; but, "to the im- 
mense surprise of his parents," he would 
not. Nothing should win him but the pro- 
fession of letters. 

"The young man hated his stepfather, 
the reasons he gave for his hatred being 
that he was his stepfather, that he was very 
demonstrative, and that he knew nothing of 
literature." One must see how nearly like 
Mr. Allan's attitude to Poe this situation 
proved to be. 

Baudelaire flew to Paris from his home 

[70] 



Baudelaire and Poe 



in Lyons, and was charmed with its literary 
circle and "the magic" of his new world. 
"He struck up an acquaintance with Bal- 
zac," says Esme Stuart, "and set up as a 
' dandy.' " In the mean time he was work- 
ing hard; "but when barely twenty years 
old his mother interfered, and, enforcing 
her legal authority, sent him to India in or- 
der to separate him from his evil surround- 
ings." Within ten months he would tole- 
rate exile no longer, and returned suddenly 
to Paris. 

The writer who gives this account says : 
" His absence must have helped to give him 
greater mastery over English, which lan- 
guage in after years was to bring him to 
the knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe. When 
the poet's majority arrived, he found him- 
self with £3,000 in his pocket and delivered 
from parental authority. Then began his 
unfettered bachelor life. He determined, 
if possible, to be something — to aim at per- 
fection ; but the taste for beautiful pictures 
[71] 



In the Poe Circle 



and antique furniture led him into extrava- 
gance little in accordance with his means." 

Through a dealer more shrewd than hon- 
est, he was saddled with a burden of in- 
debtedness that saddened his remaining 
years. With debts and a vacant pocket- 
book he could feel the position as well as 
he could absorb the poetry of Poe. It is a 
singular double parable that his career pre- 
sents ; for he had on his creative and un- 
worldly side the dainty taste and musical 
charm of his model. The torment for at- 
taining perfection was his in a marvellous 
degree. Mr. Stuart describes him as "al- 
ways touching and retouching his verses, 
ever consumed by the passion for style, 
which to the ordinary public is merely an 
insane mania." 

Like Poe, he required moods for his 
work. He was a critic and art lover too. 
In dress, and in a multitude of ways, he 
had marked idiosyncrasies. He sympa- 
thized with democracy ; and for a time was 
[72] 



Baudelaire and Poe 



somewhat demonstrative against aristocratic 
ways. The revolution of 1848 was in the 
air, and it touched "his impressionable 
brain." 

He was unfortunate in titling a collection 
of his poems " Fleurs du Mai" He claimed 
to show that evil was not wholly without its 
better side, and that good is in some mys- 
terious manner related to the whole scheme 
of things. It is an attitude not so unfamil- 
iar in France as it is in England and Amer- 
ica. Victor Hugo praised the play of his 
art by saying: " Art is like the azure — it is 
an infinite field, and you have just proved 
it" 

Good as his work was in the sense of form 
and art, he had his struggle with editors, as 
Poe did. For work far more excellent than 
journalism could show or than editors de- 
manded he could only obtain the low rates 
of the journalistic craft. He was a frequent 
wanderer " in out-of-the-way places, looking 
worn, wan, and shabby." "No wonder," 
[73] 



In the Poe Circle 



says Mr. Stuart, whose condensed account 
of him is most graphic, "that more than 
ever Edgar Poe seemed to him his twin 
brother of misfortune." He at last "had 
recourse to stimulants," to put the real 
away from his vision. To Belgium he hur- 
ried in despair, and from that country writes 
thus: 

"Think what I suffer in a place where 
the trees are black and the flowers are with- 
out scent, and where no conversation worth 
the name can be heard. You might go all 
over Belgium and not find a soul that 
speaks." 

He longs for his mother, " who takes such 
care not to reproach me." In truth, says 
this chronicler, "she was another Mrs. 
Clemm, and the sick man, remembering 
his childhood, longed for her care and sym- 
pathy." Not happy with publishers, or in 
being able to secure a sufficient hope or re- 
ward for his works, he fell ill. His death, 
through brain paralysis, was equal in its 

[74] 



Baudelaire and Poe 



tragedy to Poe's — if it did not surpass that 
unfortunate poet's ending. 

I have not chosen to dwell upon the moral 
side of Baudelaire ' s work . There is no room 
in these notes for a literary parallel to do 
more than mark that. And how striking 
and singular a one it is! Baudelaire does 
not deny that he echoed at times, whether 
consciously or otherwise, Poe's thoughts. 
He also gave a large portion of his work 
to make Poe more widely known. Four of 
his eight volumes are " consecrated to Poe " 
and his writings. 

The two affinities never met, and it is not 
certain that Baudelaire's name was one with 
which Poe was ever acquainted. Edgar Al- 
lan Poe died in 1 849, aged forty, and Charles 
Baudelaire in 1867, aged forty-six years. 



In the Poe Circle 




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[76] 



In the Poe Circle 



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[77] 



In the Poe Circle 



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[78] 



In the Poe Circle 



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[79] 



Bibliography 

A Selected List of Magazine Articles Refer- 
ring to Edgar Allan Poe and his Work 

Poe, Edgar Allan. Eel. Mag., 1858. 

Eel. Mag., 1852. 

Eel. Mag., 1875. 

Eel. Mag., 1880. 

J. H. Ingram, Internat. Rev., 1875. 

The Raven, Liv. Age, 1845. 

Liv. Age, 1850. 

Liv. Age, 1852. 

Liv. Age, 1854. 

Liv. Age, 1857. 

Liv. Age, 1858. 

Liv. Age, 1880. 

P. P. Cooke, So. Lit. Mess., 1848-1849. 

So. Lit. Mess., 1854. 

J. Savage, Dem. R., 1851. 

J. Purves, Dub. Univ. Rev., 1875. 

With portrait, E. C. Stedman, Scribner's, 

1880. 

J. W. Dalby, St. James Gaz., 1875. 

[81] 



In the Poe Circle 



Poe, Edin. Rev., 1858. 

R, W. Griswold, Internat. Mag., 1850. 

W. Minto, Fortn. Rev., 1880. 

Fraser, 1857. 

Tait's Eel. Mag., N. S., 1855. 

Nat. Mag., 1852. 

London Q. Rev., 1854 

H. A. Huntington, Dial. 

Irish Q. Rev., 1855. 

J. H. Morse, Critic, 1884. 

Leis. Hour, 1855. 

J. Gartain, Lippinc., 1889. 

R. H. Stoddard, Lippinc., 1889. 

W. O. Curtis, Am. Cath. Q., 1891. 

Ath., 1890. 

■ J. L. Onderdonk, Mid-Continent, 1895. 

W. J. Stillman, Nation, 1875. 

R. H. Stoddard, Harper's Mag., 1872. 

Canad. Mo., 1878, 

C. Whibley, New Rev., 1896. 

B. M. Ranking, Times, 1882. 

John Burroughs, Dial, 1893. 

M. A, De W. Howe, Bookman, 1897. 

M. A. De W. Howe, Am. Bookm,, with 

portrait, 1898. 
and Charles Baudelaire, Liv. Age, 1893. 

Same art., 19th Cent,, 1893. 

and Griswold' s Memoir, Temple Bar., 

1874. Same art., Eel. Mag., 1874. 
[a*] 



Bibliography 



Poe, and His Biographers, Temple Bar, 1883. 
and His Biographers, J. H. Ingram, 

Acad., 1883. 
and His Mary, A. Van Cleef, Harper's, 

1889. 

and His Writings, Once a Week, 187 1. 

and Irving, G. P, Lathrop, Scribner's, 

1875- 

and Morality, J. B. Fletcher, Harv. Mo., 

1887. 

and N. Hawthorne, E. Benson, Galaxy, 

1868. 

and the Brownings, J. L. Onderdonk, 

Dial, 1893. 

as a Poet, Lit. World, 1882. 

Bibliography of Lit. World (Bost.), 1882. 

Did He Plagiarize from Chivers? J. Ben- 
ton, Forum, 1897. 

Early Poems of, J, H, Ingram, Every Sat- 
urday, 1874. 

Early Poems of, J. H. Ingram, Gent, 

Mag„, 1874. 

Eureka, W. H. Browne, Eel. Mag., 1870. 

Eureka, Addenda to, with Comments, 

Meth. Rev., 1896. 

First Books of, L. S. Livingston, Book- 
man, 1898. 

Friends of, E. L. Didier, Chautauauan. 

1892. 
[83] 



In the Poe Circle 



Poe, Gill's Life of, Radical Rev., 1877. 

Grave of, L. R. Meekyn, Critic, 1898. 

House of, at Fordham, M, J. Lamb, Ap- 

pleton's, 1874. 

Last Days of, S. A. T. Wiess, Scribner's, 

1877. 

Last Poem; Lititha, H. W. Austin, So. 

Bivouac, 1886. 

Last Poem; Lititha, M. J. Kent, So. Biv- 
ouac, 1886. 

Legendary Years of, G. E. Woodberry, 

Atlantic, 1884. 

Letters, in New York, Century, 1894. 

Letters, in Philadelphia, Century, 1894, 

Letters, in the South, Century, 1894. 

Life and Poetry of, Chambers's Journal,. 

1853. 

Life and Poetry of, Li v. Age, 1853. 

Life and Works of, Eel. Mag., 1854. 

Life and Works of, G. B. Smith, Tinsley's. 

Mag, 1881. 

Life and Works of, So. Lit. Mess., 1850. 

Life and Works of, So. Rev., N. S, 1877. 

Life of, Hogg s Instructor, 1853. 

Moral Nature of, W. M. Griswold, Nation,. 

1895. 

Morella: a Tale, So. Lit. Mess., 1835. 

Murder in the Rue Morgue, Logic of, C. 

O. Hurd, Harv. Mo., 1885. 
[84] 



Bibliography 



Poe, Musical Possibilities of Poems of, C. S. 
Skilton, Music, 1895. 

My Adventure with, J. Hawthorne, Lip- 
pine., 1 89 1. 

New Light on, Critic, 1891. 

Not to Be Apotheosized, H. T. Harring- 
ton, Critic, 1885. 

Personality of, A. Yorgan, Munsey, 1897. 

Poems, Acad., 1882. 

Poems, American and English Criticism 

of, A. Lamson, Christian Examiner, 1844. 

Poems of, Am. Whig. Rev., 1845. 

Poems of , Dub. Univ. Mag., 1853. 

Politan, J. H. Ingram, So. Mag., 1875. 

Portraits of, E. L. Didier, Lit. World, 

1885. 

Raven : Illustrated by Dor£, Sat. Rev. > 

1883. 

Raven : Writing of, F. A. Mathews, Bach. 



of Arts, 1896. 

- Recent Works on, 1880, T. W. Higgin- 
son, Nation, 1880. 

- Recent Works on, 1880, E. L. Didier, 
Internat. Rev., 1881. 

- Recollections of, H. Paul, Munsey, 1892. 

- Reminiscences of, H. P. Rosenbach, 
America, 1887. 

- Scenes from an Unpublished Drama, So. 
Lit. Mess., 1836. 

L85] 



In the Poe Circle 



Poe, Significance of, W. Whitman, Critic, 
1882. 

Some Words with a Mummy, Am, Whig. 

Rev., 1845. 

Tales and Poems, Canad. Journal, 1857. 

Tales of, Am, Whig. Rev., 1845. 

Tales of, Blackwood's, 1847. 

The New Poe, Atlantic, 1896, 

The Raven, Am. Whig. Rev., '1845. 

The Raven, So. Lit. Mess., 1857. 

The Raven, Poe's Opinion of, J. Benton, 

Forum, 1897. 

Three Sonnets on, E. F. Pellow, Theatre, 

'82, 1882. 

Unknown Poetry of, Belgravia, 1876, 

Unpublished Correspondence of, Apple- 
ton's, 1878. 

Vindication of, St. James Gaz., 1876. 

Was He Mad? F G Fairchild, Scribner's, 

1875 

Woodberry's Life of, Amer., 1885. 

Woodberry's Life of, Atlantic, 1885. 

Woodberry's Life of, Critic, 1885. 

Woodberry's Life of, T. W. Higginson, 

Nation, 1858. 

Works of, Dem. R., 1856. 

Works of, Lit World (Bost), 1884. 

Works, Ed. by Stedman and Woodberry, 

D. L. Yaulsby, Dial, 1896. 

L861 



Bibliography 



Poe, Works, Ed. by Stoddard, Sat. Rev., 

1896. 

Works of, W. H Browne, So. Mag., 1875. 

Writings of, J. Purves, Dub. Univ. Mag., 

1875. 
Writings of, Mrs. E V. Smith, No. Amer. 

Rev., 1856. 



SEP S7 1899 



